Interface for the rotation direction

A cross-platform application for configuring, controlling, debugging, and monitoring HEBI hardware products.
Post Reply
husch
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 6:18 am

Interface for the rotation direction

Post by husch » Thu Jun 24, 2021 10:54 am

Hello,

It is useful to configure zero positions, joint limits, PID gains etc using Scope, since the users do not have the direct access to microcontrolers.

Is it possible to add an interface to configure rotation direction on Scope as well?
It makes sense to have both position offset and sign (rotation direction) configured on the microcontroller side.

Thank you very much. Look forward to hearing your thoughts on that.
User avatar
florian_enner
HEBI Official
Posts: 33
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:31 am
Location: Austria

Re: Interface for the rotation direction

Post by florian_enner » Thu Jun 24, 2021 11:25 am

Can you elaborate on why you would want to change the direction?

The direction is logically consistent with the labels on the actuator, the hrdf model, and other sensors like the IMU. My first thought is that allowing inconsistent negative signs may end up confusing users and may result in unexpected bugs that are difficult to debug. I'm open to adding it if there is a good enough reason for it though.
husch
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 6:18 am

Re: Interface for the rotation direction

Post by husch » Fri Jun 25, 2021 6:59 am

Thanks for the quick reply.

True, if we change the rotation direction, we will need to update joint and motor position and velocity, deflection and deflection velocity, IMU output, etc. accordingly on the microcontroller side.

The main reason to change the direction is to align the actuator rotation direction with the our robot coordinate system.
One example is the left and right shoulder joints of Igor. Using our robot coordinate convention, when Igor lifts both his arms to the same angle, the joint positions of left and right shoulder are the same, instead of having different sign.

It is an option to do the conversion at the higher software layer instead of on the microcontrollers. But it is quite confusing to use Scope to configure and tune the robot, the users have to do this conversion as well.
Look forward to hearing the argument from the other side :)

Thank you very much.
User avatar
dave_rollinson
HEBI Official
Posts: 41
Joined: Tue Dec 31, 2019 11:58 am

Re: Interface for the rotation direction

Post by dave_rollinson » Fri Jun 25, 2021 3:48 pm

One interim option might be to setup some custom plots in Scope that invert feedback.
https://docs.hebi.us/tools.html#custom-charts

-Dave
husch
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 6:18 am

Re: Interface for the rotation direction

Post by husch » Mon Jun 28, 2021 7:01 am

Thanks Dave, that is a good interim option :)
So what are your thoughts on adding rotation direction in the Scope's 'Danger Zone'? :)
Attachments
Screenshot from 2021-06-16 21-43-50.png
Screenshot from 2021-06-16 21-43-50.png (17.6 KiB) Viewed 16156 times
User avatar
florian_enner
HEBI Official
Posts: 33
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:31 am
Location: Austria

Re: Interface for the rotation direction

Post by florian_enner » Mon Jul 05, 2021 12:53 pm

Sorry. This is a reasonable request, but after internal discussion we do not think that it would be a good idea to break assumptions at that level. It offers too much potential for confusion for a limited use case.
husch
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 6:18 am

Re: Interface for the rotation direction

Post by husch » Wed Jul 07, 2021 6:51 am

Thank you Florian for discussing it internally.
Post Reply